We shift paradigms like hot lead off a galley
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OSI complains to German watchdog
THE GERMAN Federal Cartel Office is investigating claims by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) that Novell selling most of its patents to a cartel of IT firms is a bad idea.
According to the OSI, Novell has been a key player in the fast-growing market of commercial open source software.
However when Novell announced that it will be acquired by Attachmate in a transaction valued at $2.2 billion, there were fears that Novell's sizeable patent portfolio could be used attack the entire community of open source developers and companies.
This is a major concern, as a group of IT companies led by Microsoft has offered over $400 million to strip almost all of Novell's patent assets from the Attachmate transaction and place them into a new entity called CPTN. The Vole has roped in its proprietary software mates Oracle, Apple and EMC to be co-owners of the patents.
In a statement, the OSI said that it was compelled to request that competition authorities take a closer look at the proposed transaction. It dashed off a complaint to the German Federal Cartel Office requesting that they investigate this transaction thoroughly.
"We have received an acknowledgement of receipt by the department in charge, and we stand ready to offer any additional assistance that may be required by investigators should they ask for such help," the OSI said. µ
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@jammed:
Microsoft, Ballmer and Gates have a long history of self-serving anticompetitive business practises (and have been fined multiple times for this). Anytime Microsoft has "donated" something (like actually bribing governments to get "OOXML" code through ISO) there are huge strings attached designed to afford them control over the marketplace.
Another recent example is that Novell was paid by Microsoft to band-aid its version of OpenOffice to be partially compatible with Microsoft's ongoing changes to its document formats: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20101219121621828
It's not that people "unjustly" focus on Microsoft's underhanded dirty tricks...it is just that there are so many constant and blatant examples of these abuses of their monopolistic position to attack competitors (especially open source) that Microsoft has destroyed its own reputation.
Now that they have fabricated this little anti-competitive patent pool club, where all the other proprietary liars can gather, this shows the world the true colors of these other companies as well. Apple, Oracle, EMC, and Microsoft are birds of a feather, and association with Microsoft's damaged reputation will similarly drag these other companies down into the gutter of anticompetitive business practices (in addition to making their own anticompetitive business practices more visible for all to see). These emperors have no clothes.
Yeah, let's just forget what a great and generous corporation Microsoft really can be.. Not a word from me about the last time where Microsoft donated a lot of patents to them. Nope, not a word. Bad Microsoft, bad!! And Not a word about Linus himself that admits that Linux is the worst piece of bloatware ever, nope not a word. Go Linus, Go!!
Better just to completely ignore this useless post, because I am obviously not as grown up as that kid above.. Who thinks it's a really grown up thing to do to tell people that have a different opinion than him to grow up.
Let's all grow down, because I don't see anything useful up here!!
techy46, you're an idiot. Please actually read the article before contributing your "opinion" to the post. It's completely invaluable to post things that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the article and are just a sad attempt to convey your misinformed and stupidly definitive ways. Open your eyes, learn to read, and then consider posting like a grown up.
Man oh man, if MS and pals actually pull that stuff to mess up open source it's certainly time to get some legislation to curb such behavior.
Talk about defining 'evil'
Mind you it could also be to cover their asses for stuff that's used in their own software, for by not having the sword in the hands of any competitor you secure your safety, because what if MS used some of that stuff in windows7 and apple or google buys those patents for instance, that would not be appreciated by the MS boys at all.